Suwannee River Hydrologic Observatory Questionnaire:
December 3, 2004
Name:
Affiliation:
Mike Annable
UF Dept. of Environmental Engineering Sciences
(1) What science questions and/or hypotheses would you like to address within the
Suwannee River watershed? Please be specific about how and why the Suwannee River
would be a good place to study these questions/hypotheses and if they pertain to the
entire watershed or just a part (e.g. estuary, unconfined lower river, confined
headwaters).
Question:
What spatial and temporal monitoring scales are needed to assess
human influences on nutrient loads to river systems?
Hypothesis: The spatial scale required to characterize human influences on river
system water quality are correlated to (perhaps equal to) the spatial scale of
landscape units producing loads. Temporal scales are correlated to integrated load
functions related to landscape unit residence times and rates of load transitions.
(2) Would your science questions/hypotheses extend across a hypothetical observatory
network consisting of the Suwannee River watershed and perhaps four other watersheds
distributed around the country? If so, how? Please be specific about how and why the
Suwannee River would be an important part of the hypothetical HO network necessary to
study these questions/hypotheses.
This hypothesis should be tested in several watersheds with varying hydrogeologic
conditions and spatial and temporal scales for nutrient loads. Limited testing would
only support the hypethesis over a narrow range. The Suwannee River is an
excellent system because the basin consists of two distinct hydrogeologic regions
with variations in loads. Since the system is largely unregulated flow, the
hypotheses are tested under natural flow conditions. Testing in other basins with
highly regulated flow could follow. The Suwannee River Basin also offers the
advantage that nutrient loads are increasing with time. Since the Basin is under
development pressures, the temporal time scales for changing loads will be dynamic.
(3) How do your specific questions/hypotheses address broader science issues, i.e. do
they have global implications? These broader issues could come from the listed crosscutting science topics and cross-cutting themes or could relate to other topics that you
may suggest.
This study would assess scaling issues in water quality monitoring and modeling.
Appropriate spatial and temporal scales are critical for watershed modeling of
nutrient loads. This assessment of appropriate forcing function scales for nutrient
loads will help define capabilities of watershed models and predictive limitations.
(4) What kind of data would be required to address your questions/hypotheses? Be as
specific as possible about the scale, frequency, and resolution of the sampling needed.
Describe the data as either core data collected by the observatory and immediately
disseminated to the community or individual investigator data collected by a principle
investigator with extramural funding but using facility infrastructure.
This study would require water flow and quality monitoring stations at a number of
locations along the Suwannee River. It is anticipated that the monitoring network
that defines the “core” data set for the HO will not have adequate spatial and
temporal scale data to meet the needs of this research. The study would use the core
data, which will likely consist of nested basins within the major basin, and enhance
this with low cost high resolution monitoring for limited duration at different times.
The monitoring will consist of traditional water quality sampling and instantaneous
flow measurement, but will greatly extend the data set using an innovative
monitoring method developed at UF. We will use the surface water passive flux
meter (SPFM) to provide high resolution water and nutrient flux measurements
within the basin. This method uses a hydrofoil design that is place in the stream
with a sorbent column to trap nutrients and release tracers. The method provides
cumulative nutrient flux and water flow based on the tracer loss during deployment.
This approach will allow economical data collection to address the hypotheses stated
above.
(5) What resources (time, money, personnel) are needed to collect data to address the
science questions and can any data be leveraged for the observatory? This question will
be important when we start to develop a budget for the observatory.
I assume that the existing water quality monitoring, currently conducted by
SRWMD, will be enhanced with HO funds to fill gaps in the monitoring network
and produce the nested basin design. Based on the Neuse Report the capital costs
would likely be around $1000K for flow and $500K per year to monitor. The water
quality is likely to cost a bit less for capitol but perhaps higher annual given
analytical costs. The enhancement to this data set to provide the high resolution
data needed would likely cost in the range of $200K/year. The extent of testing
would be assessed as the project proceeds with likely 5 years of data. This project
could be leveraged with funds from sources such as USDA, EPA, Florida DEP,
(6) What type of Education/Outreach activities do you envision for the results of your
science questions or are you interested in developing Education/Outreach activities that
stand alone from specific science questions?
The high resolution monitoring activities could be coordinated with local schools to
get middle and high school students to the monitoring sites to learn about hydrology
and water quality issues.
(7) If you do not have specific science-driven topics, but wish to be involved in the
observatory, please explain what your interests are and how you might interact with the
observatory.
I’m interested in the data collection needed to quantify stores, fluxed, residence
times and flow paths. I don’t think the HO budgets are adequate to assess all of
these (at multiple scales) but perhaps we can learn much more about these
quantities.
__________________________________________________________________
To: People interested in the Suwannee River Hydrologic Observatory
From: Jon Martin, jmartin@geology.ufl.edu
December 1, 2004
The following questionnaire requests information about what science you would like to
include in the Suwannee River Hydrologic Observatory. Please complete the
questionnaire and return it to me by December 15, 2004. A small group of us (the
“hypothesis development team”) will sort through the information and attempt to separate
the ideas into major overarching themes to present to all participants at the plenary
January meeting. Information from this questionnaire will serve as the backbone for the
proposal.
As a reminder, the science topics and cross-cutting themes that CUAHSI (and NSF) sees
as important for the observatory network to address include:
Science Topics:
 Linking hydrologic and biogeochemical cycles
 Hydrologic Extremes
 Sustainability of water resources
 Transport of chemical and biological contaminants
 Hydrologic influence on ecosystem functions
Cross-cutting Themes
 Scaling
 Forcing, feedbacks, and coupling
 Predictions and limits-to-prediction
Also, the Nuese prototype recognized that all hypotheses required the characterization of
four basic properties of the catchment:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Mass in each “store” of the catchment
Residence time within stores
Fluxes between stores
Flowpaths among the stores
As you answer the following questions, please consider how your proposed science and
role in the Suwannee River Hydrologic Observatory fit with these topics. Do not feel
constrained to stick solely with these topics, however; if you think of other broad
categories, please suggest them as well.
Short answers, even written in outline form will help more than no answers. Right now
we are looking for ideas and thoughts, not fully developed proposals Do not feel
obligated to answer all questions if they do not pertain to your interests. Thanks for your
help; the more we can do now, the more competitive our proposal will be.
Jon